QuoteReplyTopic: Getting the most out of a robot Posted: 03/03/2012 at 12:54am

Hi all,

I have an Oukei S9 robot which I have used to practice individual strokes but so far this practice has not translated into any real game improvement. I am losing to styles of play that are not easily replicable with a robot (e.g. chopping). I was wondering if anyone has any tips on how to get the most out of a robot. Thanks!

Hi all,I have an Oukei S9 robot which I have used to practice individual strokes but so far this practice has not translated into any real game improvement. I am losing to styles of play that are not easily replicable with a robot (e.g. chopping). I was wondering if anyone has any tips on how to get the most out of a robot. Thanks!<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span itemscope="" item="http://schema.org/Product"></span>

If you want to practice against chop, move the robat back away from the table so you can shot long slow underspin.

Yes, you can move the robot back to have a better underspin practice session.

Robot is a good form of training if your body action is correct, and ofcourse is bad for you if you have incorrect actions. The saying pratice makes perfect only is valid if you not practising incorrectly, otherwise it is called habbits

1)Let's say you're doing BH practices, it's easy to develop a motion where even before the ball comes out, your body and arm are already in position for a BH loop. That's obviously useless during games because you don't know if the ball is coming to your BH. What you need to do is to set the frequency of the robot to such that it allows you to take a mini step to the right, execute a FH swing, and then the next ball shoots out toward your BH. Your FH swing will be just swinging against air, so it won't really practice your FH shot, but it'll let you practice executing a BH shot IMMEDIATELY after a FH shot, i.e. good FH/BH connections.

2)If your robot can oscillate, set it to a lower frequency and ball speed and let it oscillate to random spots onto the table. After you hit every shot, return to ready position and CLOSE YOUR EYES. Don't open them until you hear the next ball being spit out, and quickly return it with a bit more power than you can consistently land(no point in keep practicing shots you can already make consistently). One of the weaknesses with robots, no matter how good they are, is that you always know which direction it's heading, but in a real game you often can't anticipate nearly as well. This helps to alleviate that problem quite a bit.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I will definitely try positioning the robot far from the table. Just for the record I do get coaching. I purchased a robot for daily practice after I get home from work and can't make it to a club to play.

Turn it off. Practice your serves. I'm not trying to be clever, If you practice your serves you will gain more benefit than playing a robot.

Its a very good point, but you need to have a complete game, not just good serves. Also good players return good serves so there can be a limit to their effectiveness. A good shot however will always be a good shot.

To me the best benefit I get from a robot is chasing balls down when they osillate. My mates have a y&t S27 that I practice on every now and then. We set it up so it serves short underspin to my backhand then a couple of fast topspins to random landing positions for a total of 10 balls. Then they hit start again and off we go. To make it better they keep playing with the number of slow underspins and landing areas of the topspins every 2-3 sets. Apart from a crazy workout I get alot out of this both defending the balls that are hard to reach and hammering the ones I get into position for. The goal being get every ball back so the opponent gets a chance to miss.

I just have a cheap Newgy 1050, but I'm using it to practice any shots that I need to hit harder or place better, or with more consistency. I use the random oscillation (width of the table) and random speed (length of my side for landing point) and random wait to help me learn to adjust to the different balls I'll be getting, and I start with 100 balls each time and try to count how many I miss. I plan to reduce the wait times as I get better. I also wrote a program that "exercises" some of my setup and attack shot sequences.

Anyway, its only been a few weeks, but its helping. I'm surprising better players lately. Still have ups and downs, but beating anyone in a match that's over 2000 is a big thing for me, all things considered.

If you want something to feed you balls, look at one of the i-pongs. Cheap as for a robot (and simple to match). However...... The i-pong pro is a duel wheel robot, and with a simple modification with some three way switches, you can produce dead balls to heavy spin with oscillation. All of 30 seconds to set up. The i-pong topspin hits only topspin, but is battery powered so you can take it anywhere.

I have the iPong topspin robot and it's actually pretty useful. As a cheap robot, the balls it generates are not very consistent, which is actually pretty useful because you have to watch the ball and make slight adjustments for each shot.

Never ever set the robot to place the ball with the exact same location.... I found it out the hard way, it makes you lazy and flatfooted which translate to poor footwork. Even when you're just practising FH/BH, make the robot at least oscillate about a quarter to half of the table width... I always practice multiball with the robot shooting balls all over the place... It has made my rallying capabilities very much stronger...

if something is wrong, don't blame the robot but blame it on your technique, find reasons why your technique isn't working out for you. A robot works both ways, it cements good technique, and it also cements bad technique into your mind...

With backspin from choppers, pushing off your feet is a really effective source of energy to overcome the backspin, you just modify the amount of "pushing off" to deal with different degrees of backspin... watch this for a demonstration .

Also if you do not have strong legs then you have 2 other options:

1) pushing back with great feeling, keeping the ball low and with great placement

2) you can use funky blade angle changes to overcome or hit through backspin can't really explain this properly...watch short pip players to get an idea how to do it...inverted can do this as well but i really don't recommend it...

Never ever set the robot to place the ball with the exact same location.... I found it out the hard way, it makes you lazy and flatfooted which translate to poor footwork. Even when you're just practising FH/BH, make the robot at least oscillate about a quarter to half of the table width... I always practice multiball with the robot shooting balls all over the place... It has made my rallying capabilities very much stronger...

I think this is really based on how focus you are with your footwork.IE a FH to FH cross court can also be "footwork less", but a player can also use full footworks to hit and get back into position.

But yes, it is also very important to play "random" placements, but with this, I prefer multi ball feeder more than robot (where the feeder stand at the opponent end and not by the net)

One simple footwork drill if the ball is going to same place on FH is to hop when hitting FH. Start in normal FH position, then hop to be parallel to table edge when hitting the ball. Then hop back to ready position for the next ball. Repeat for a minute.

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